Me and my bro’ at ‘J Factor’, at the Jesus House. Yes, it is what you think.

While work beckons me to apply my mind elsewhere, I’ve begun a night of productive procrastination and feel the need to continue. (Sidenote: In this instance ‘productive’ can be defined as discovering the chords I needed for a ditty I’ve been singing, (B7 – 021202 – is pretty cool!), adding a profile picture to my Vimeo account and twittering).

Realising that this blog is more than just a place to organise and publish the random collection of thoughts in my head, but also a place that people (possibly) frequent in order to find out what’s happening with me, it’s obviously time to update.

University

Truly, truly amazing. Even having done another degree and knowing this one isn’t all I’d hoped it would be, it is more in a lot of other ways – I’ve learned letterpress, recently done a workshop in screen printing, and am getting all my 120mm Lomo film developed for free. (You can only really share in my excitement if this means something to you, if not then don’t worry about it. It might prove more exciting for you if you go play tricks on your dog. Or something.)

Also, on my course, every EU country seems to be represented. Sometimes it feels like I’m actually at a Geneva convention. Italians, Spaniards, Portugues..ians, Czechs, Swedes, Danes – once I was in a class of 20 and only one British accent could be heard.

One thing I’m getting more and more psyched about is sharing my faith with people. I’ve had a few ’starter’ conversations, and I’m just looking forward to how God will bypass the mental glitch in my brain that causes me to verbally fumble anything important and speak into the hearts of people who need Him. Isaiah 55:11, baby!

Church

What a struggle it was to find one! I love you so much, BCEC, there’s so many of you that have well and truly laid stars into the sidewalk of my life who will never be forgotten. And the hard thing to do now is find anything that will compare! It was a long, hard first couple of months visiting churches and never seeing a potential home in any of them, the wanderer soul of mine wanted to find rest and it was a discouraging time.

But what a wonderful God we have, One who knows every need. When I finally did find a church, it wasn’t without it’s mishaps: it was only on the fourth try that I actually managed to get to it. But that’s another story. In the end, I’ve found my spiritual home at Revelation Church, a new frontiers church that is so charismatic it’s verging on pentecostal… but I had the feeling that’s where this heart of mine was heading towards the end of the Birmingham chapter of my life. (Alex will possibly be reminded of all those conversations on tongues and prophecies, I’m sure.)

I’m currently serving on the welcome team (only!), and it’s been so strange not DOING stuff all the time! I’m not leading anything, not doing anything music-related, not hanging out with people 3/4 my age (15 is not half my age yet, ha!). While that may change, for now it’s been wonderful playing guitar on the stage of my bedroom and having Bible studies with an audience of One. And those times have led to sweet moments with my Saviour. But I do miss iD though; truly, truly I do. There’s nothing like spending time with teenagers to humble you and give you much to praise God for.

That’s all for now!

I’m sorry it was such a brief update, and I hope to be more frequent with news in future. There’s only so much that we can read at a time, though. Especially in a sans-serif font.

Now, off to do some real work… In the meantime, here is a picture of the daftest duck ever.

Abba, Father, would You purposefully put me in danger?

Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that there is a battle raging. Domesticated Christians are far too willing to abdicate the batle for the soul of the world… We spend our lives emphasizing our personal development and spiritual well-being. We build churches that become nothing but hiding places for the faithful while pretending that our actions are for the good of the world.

…In contrast, Jesus calls us to a different way. He tells us this is a battle of kingdoms… We are called to be warriors of light in dark places.

p. 108-108, The Barbarian Way by Erwin Raphael McManus.

Abba, Father, would You purposefully put me in danger?

“Yes.”

I would not want riches
If I was poor in love
and did not have the heart to give it all away

I would not want a weary soul
That had lost sight of Your goal
But one that had given all to save the Harvest

I would not want tired feet
Because I walked away from Thee
But ran the miles to bring Good News to dark lands

I would not want Your grace for me
To lead me to complacency
But grace that drives me onwards to love You

I would not want another way
To steal this heart, lead me astray
For what else in this world could I live for?

by Tuuli Platner, 2009.

See You Tomorrow - sunset by beforethealtar

Hey everyone!

I’ve begun a new challenge in my photography, submitting a new photograph each day to my deviantArt account. This is literally just a quick post to let you know about that, and to tell you my gallery can be found here:  beforethealtar.deviantart.com

I hope to be doing it for as long as possible, so you can follow along the way with me!

I pray God blesses you all; bye for now!

Apply Your heart to instruction
and your ears to words of knowledge.
Proverbs 23:12

A few years ago theology never even crossed my mind, and I bought a lot of Christian books based on cover and not on content. And when reading them I only managed to finish the biographies; I had a short attention span and little perseverance when it came to non-fiction. (Nor did I have any appreciation for them, thinking at the time that I knew a lot!)

I rated sermons on how well they were delivered or whether the application at the end was challenging enough. And the way I read stories for years involved skipping over everything bar the parts with dialogue. It made for some confusing narratives, to be honest, and re-reading the Narnia books the second time around revealed some amazing new parts I could not remember in the slightest from the previous reading!

Now you’ll find that most (hopefully all) Christians agree it is important to read your Bible. You’ll also find that a lot of Christians believe it’s important to go further afield and read theological books as well. I’m in a camp that believes that we should be reading even more than that.

My mind goes back to a story about Jim Elliot, a missionary killed by the tribesmen in Ecuador he was reaching out to. While studying in university he ate healthily in accordance with his ideas ‘about preserving a rugged body for missionary work in the future’ (Shadow of the Almighty, 1958, p. 39), and took up wrestling, believing that ‘participation in some sport contributed to his training as a soldier in Jesus Christ’  (p. 45). While wrestling wasn’t a ‘Christian’ endeavour, the reasoning behind it was for Christ’s glory – if not in the present, then in the future.

I believe there should be a similar motivation in what we read – we should learn what this world believes, and it should send us back to the Bible to confirm and reaffirm our own beliefs.

We should learn about effective communication and marketing, so that our churches can break through and capture the attention of an advertising-saturated audience.

We should learn about design and aesthetics, so our creations will reflect the beauty of our Creator and raise people’s eyes heavenward.

We should learn business and finance management so that we can be wise stewards of our time and money.

We should learn new languages to communicate the truth more clearly to others and grow in our awareness of cultures other than our own.

But in all this, it is important to remember Paul’s warning that ‘knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.’ (1 Cor 8:1-3).

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Further Reading
If you so wish!

The Art of Non-Conformity – Hints, life-hacks, tips, inspiration.

The Well-Read Christian – Why saints should read.

Between Two Worlds – Collection of mostly-Christian blog posts, articles, book reviews, videos and interviews.

Are You Easily Edified? – Challenging post from the Rebelution blog.